City May Face Dump Cleanup Tab

Corporation Counsel Advises Against Silver Shovel Suit

August 27, 1999|By Gary Washburn, Tribune Staff Writer.

The city's top attorney on Thursday told angry aldermen something they didn't want to hear: City Hall would be on shaky legal ground if it sued the federal government for the dump-site cleanup costs caused by FBI mole John Christopher.

Corporation Counsel Mara Georges also reported that U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar has expressed a willingness to help find federal funding for the cleanup, as she called for a strategy of cooperation with Washington instead of confrontation.

"It doesn't help things to file suit," she told members of the City Council's Finance Committee.

That assessment did not sit well with several aldermen, including one who suggested that the executive branch of city government was going easy on the U.S. attorney's office to avoid the same sort of scrutiny by prosecutors that has sent City Council colleagues to jail.

Some council members believe that the federal government should pay for all cleanup costs associated with Christopher after July 1992, when he became a government mole in the Silver Shovel probe of City Hall corruption. That total is estimated at $4.5 million out of about $17 million in Christopher-related expenses at five dump locations on the South and West Sides.

After Christopher was recruited by the FBI, city officials said he dumped more than 13,000 truckloads of refuse at 76th Street and Albany Avenue, one of the five sites.

Lassar declined an invitation to appear before the Finance Committee to discuss possible federal responsibility, choosing to send a letter instead.

In it, he asserted that the FBI "never directed or authorized" Christopher to dump the debris.

"I do not believe that the federal government is morally or legally liable for any unauthorized illegal dumping by Christopher," Lassar said.

Georges told the committee that the deck would be stacked against the city if a suit were filed. The Tort Immunity Act, designed to insulate the federal government against certain claims, would greatly diminish the chance of success, she said.

"That is a defense, but it is not like the infallibility of the pope," retorted Ald. Thomas Allen (38th). Citing as one example a recent damage suit against gun manufacturers and firearms shops, Allen asserted that the city routinely "takes risks" in court on important issues.

Allen and Ald. Thomas Murphy (18th) also asserted that Lassar contradicted himself when he suggested federal agents played no role in Christopher's dumping.

In the letter, Lassar said the FBI provided its mole with money that he used to bribe Ald. Virgil Jones (15th) in December 1992, five months after Christopher joined the government's investigation. Jones subsequently was convicted of corruption charges.

"I think you have before you all the evidence you need that it was much more than negligent oversight by FBI agents," Murphy told Georges.

"When you pay someone off, it is to allow you to do an illegal act," Allen said.

After the meeting, a frustrated Murphy charged that the Daley administration doesn't want to take on the federal government.

"It is OK for the federal government to march all over the City Council but not over the administration," he declared. "The city Law Department doesn't want to go toe-to-toe with the Justice Department."

Federal law enforcement officials "could get angry and then they are going to look at how they can punish the administration," he asserted.

"That is absolutely preposterous," Georges said. "It is without any basis, and I am shocked that after I sat up there for nearly two hours it was only after I left and the hearing was concluded that he would raise something like that."

Murphy said he would consult with colleagues before deciding whether to introduce an ordinance that would force the Law Department to file suit.